Allen gnawed on a strip of salted jerky as he looked through the list of his skills. It was a rather good cut of meat for the price, and with a bread roll, two bowls of vegetable stew, and some cheese, it all tied together for an excellent meal. As far as dinner in a cave went, he had experienced far, far worse.

“So, Kenneth,” Ty started as he looked over at the Mage. He was also nearly done with his meal. “What were you planning on doing after getting out of here?”

Kenneth hummed in thought. “I… My pals and I will probably try out adventurin’,” he said. “I don’t need to be on the farm all the time… and uh, one of us has got the money for gear… We could…” He trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Ty chuckled. “Well, that’s a start,” he began. “You don’t need to have everything figured out right away.”

Of course, Allen wasn’t listening to the conversation; he had skill points to spend.

Skills:

Job: Assassin

Tier 1 – Active: Silence – Category: Martial Arts – Stalk quietly on your feet, unheard until it’s too late.

Tier 1 – Active: Suppression – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel mana into an enemy to daze and confuse them.

Tier 2 – Passive: Killer Instinct ­– Category: State of Mind – Estimate the success of your moves before you make them.

Tier 3 – Passive: Dead Calm – Category: State of Mind – Become like a true assassin: Dead inside.

Tier 5 – Meta: Assassinate – Category: Martial Arts – Deal more damage when your enemies are unaware.

Job: Striker

Tier 3 – Active: Heavy Strike – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel mana into a single strike to deal devastating damage.

Tier 5 – Passive: Mana Shroud – Category: Miasma Manipulation – Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

The first thing he did was max out Killer Instinct, Dead Calm, and Heavy Strike. Those three were his most important skills, other than Assassinate. Then he added a point into Silence and Suppression to see what would happen. The results were, as expected, not too impressive. However, the other three skills improved noticeably.

Skill: Killer Instinct

Estimate the success of your moves before you make them.

Category: State of Mind – Type: Passive – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Predict your enemy’s weak spots and how much damage an attack will deal or how much damage you will take. Foresee the potential danger of your actions or the actions of your enemy.

Cost: None

Skill: Dead Calm

Become like a true assassin: Dead inside.

Category: State of Mind – Type: Passive – Tier 5 Max

Effects: The furor of battle calms you; the stress of pursuit steadies you mind. As the fight drags on, your focus, wisdom, dexterity, and stability increase; +5%/min, max of +350% modifier.

Cost: +5%SP usage while active.

Skill: Heavy Strike

Channel mana into a single strike to deal devastating damage.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Charge an attack with mana and discharge it all at once through contact to deal heavy damage; proportional to strength, intelligence, and the tier of this skill. The base damage is multiplied by the physical force of the attack. Overcharge to deal more damage; a portion of the damage is absorbed by you.

Cost: 50MP/min – 200MP Base – 400MP Max

Skill: Silence

Stalk quietly, unheard until it’s too late.

Category: Martial Arts – Type: Passive – Tier 2

Effects: Reduces the sound that is caused by movement, attacks, and breathing.

Cost: 1SP/s while in use.

Skill: Suppression

Channel mana into an enemy to daze and confuse them.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 2

Effects: Send a burst of mana directly into the target on contact. Dazed enemies may be startled or numbed. Enemies below 1/4 of your level will receive an additional fear effect; duration proportional to the difference in level between you and the target; Max of 5s

Cost: 10MP.

Killer Instinct and Dead Calm both improved significantly, each gaining a few new features. Allen already knew how those two skills leveled though, at least up to tier twenty or so. Thus, Heavy Strike had been the more highly anticipated skill to level up. It, however, mainly just improved in raw power.

It wasn’t disappointing, but it wasn’t exciting either. Allen could only hope that it would change after the level one-hundred threshold when the cap raises to ten.

Silence and Suppression, just like before, wouldn’t be effective against monsters, despite their added effects.

Allen snorted. “Say what you will about dying, but the most unpleasant part is still losing all your skills and levels.” With that thought, he turned his attention to the list of new available skills. He still had eight of his seventeen skill points to spend.

Skills available to job: Silent Assassin

Tier 2 – Active: Slip Step – Category: Martial Arts – Quickly evade with superhuman movements befitting an assassin.

Tier 2 – Active: Expanded Awareness – Category: State of Mind – Focus your mind on sensory inputs to become aware of more in a single instant.

Tier 1 – Passive: Disappear – Category: State of Mind – Regulate your body and your mind to become harder to perceive when staying still.

Tier 1 – Passive: Body of the Assassin – Category: Enhancement Magic – Your body becomes lighter and more durable.

Tier 1 – Meta: Bleed – Category: Enhancement Magic – The wounds you inflict will bleed more than usual.

Skills available to job: Heavy Striker

Tier 2 – Active: Heavy Accelerate – Category: Enhancement Magic – Drastically increase your speed for a single moment.

Tier 1 – Active: Heavy Jab – Category: Enhancement Magic – Apply damaging magic to your attacks.

Tier 1 – Passive: Sure Footed – Category: Martial Arts – Keep a steady footing while moving quickly.

Tier 2 – Meta: Channeling Control – Category: Channeling Magic – Control the output of Channeling skills within a certain range.

Tier 1 – Meta: Vital Strike – Category: Martial Arts – Your strikes land true and cripple your enemy.

“So many good skills to choose from… Accelerate looks the best out all of them, and so does Channeling Control.” Allen glanced over his list of skills again. “Well, actually, I only have two Channeling skills right now. I’ll get Heavy Jab then.”

Allen quickly put one point each into Heavy Accelerate and Heavy Jab, then he moved onto other skills. Four more points went into Vital Strike, and the remaining two into Body of the Assassin.

Skill: Heavy Accelerate

Drastically increase your speed for a single moment.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Active – Tier 2

Effects: Instantaneously increase your movement speed and attacking speed; magnitude of +50%, duration of 1s. Additional speed does not add additional momentum.

Cost: 50MP

Skill: Heavy Jab

Apply damaging magic to your attacks.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 1

Effects: Increase the physical damage of your attacks by 5%.

Cost: 10MP

Skill: Vital Strike

Your strikes land true and cripple your enemy.

Category: Martial Arts – Type: Meta – Tier 4

Effects: Your enemy’s vital zones are 5% larger against your attacks. Attacking your enemy’s critical vital zones will ignore 5% of their resistance. Taking more than 90% of your enemy’s HP in a single hit will cause paralysis; duration proportional to the difference in level between you and the target. Max of 2s.

Cost: 50SP Base – 100SP to cause paralysis

Skill: Body of the Assassin

Your body becomes lighter and more durable.

Category: Martial Arts – Type: Meta – Tier 2

Effects: Your body becomes 10% lighter. Your skin and bones become 5% tougher.

Cost: None

“And that’s that,” Allen thought. “Vital Strike is definitely the best of the four, but Accelerate could be just as good… I’ll have to do some testing.”

He finished looking over his skills by the time the others were ready to sleep. He quickly stored his armor before changing out of his destroyed clothes with his inventory. The whole process only took a fraction of a second, practiced as it was. Allen didn’t even stop to consider the convenience of his inventory as he laid down on his mat.

It still wasn’t level, but Allen figured he wouldn’t have gotten good sleep anyway. “Sleep is like dark humor and food in a third-world country; not everyone gets it.”

“Uh, hey?” Kenneth started, right as he pulled a heavy wool blanket out of his inventory. “I can, uh, I can take watch for you. I didn’t really do any fighting… and I know you must be tired…”

Allen narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a no for me dawg.” He rolled around on his mat to face into the cave. Neither Christopher nor Ty responded immediately and the other two were already sleeping. “I’ll do first watch,” Allen said. “I didn’t want to sleep anyway.”

“Fine by me,” Ty replied, laying down on his mat. The professor did the same after pulling himself off his wheelchair.

For some reason, Kenneth seemed disappointed at having his opportunity to keep watch over the group overruled. For the life of him, Allen couldn’t think of why. He rubbed his temple but, stubbornly, nothing would come to mind. “I guess he just wants to be helpful. Poor boy,” he thought, chuckling as he rolled back over on his mat.

Allen got up from his spot on the shelf formation after everyone had fallen asleep about an hour later. The first thing he did was check to make sure Kenneth was really asleep, and he really was. Neither lightly slapping his face nor trying to pull his pants off woke the young man.

Satisfied, Allen decided to go on a walk around the floor. Since it was completely empty, the only threat would be other people showing up and he’d probably be able to hear them in the completely silent cavern.

Still, he didn’t go too far away from the group. He didn’t need to patrol the entire floor; the silence and solitude was enough for him. With the emotional withdraw from Dead Calm still whirling his brain around, some time alone was greatly appreciated.

“Yeah, the worst part about Dead Calm is the fact that it makes me look crazy as fuck when it wears off… Even crazier than I normally am, or maybe just a different kind of crazy.” Allen filed away his thoughts when he returned to his camp a few hours later. He immediately noticed that Amelia was missing from her mat.

It didn’t take long to find her though. The Healer was just sitting alone a few dozen meters away from the others.

Allen didn’t activate Silence as he approached her; that would have been excessive. “What opening one-liner should I use?” he thought as he approached the girl. Well… woman, that is.

He figured whatever he tried would come out as gigacringe and quite possibly ruin their relationship. That’s how it had always been back when he was still just a normal, nerdy teenager. He laughed internally as embarrassing memories came to mind, then he schooled his expression to keep the cynical darkness down.

“Hey there,” he said with a wave and a grin.

Amelia turned around, though not fast enough to suggest that she had been startled. Allen caught sight of a piece of paper disappearing into her inventory as she turned to look at him. It was only for a moment, but he could tell that it was a picture.

“Was that the picture Andy gave you?” he asked as he took a seat next to the Healer.

She shuffled as he sat down. “Yes, it was,” she said.

“Andy didn’t give you a shitty picture, did he?”

Amelia looked down at her empty hands for a moment. “No, actually. I thought he would do something like that too… but what he actually gave me is more like a scrying tool for the past. I can make it show me any image of my family.”

Allen’s mind drew a blank for a second. “That’s… really nice,” he started, looking confused. “It doesn’t seem like something Andy would do.”

“Yeah, I know,” Amelia replied, “It’s probably the only thing I’ve ever truly valued since I first woke up in this world.”

“…Do you mind if I see it?” Allen asked, “The picture I mean… or some of them, I guess.”

Amelia took a deep breath and shuffled uncomfortably, but after a moment she hummed in acceptance. “Sure.” The picture reappeared in her hands and she held it out to her side.

Gingerly, Allen leaned over until their shoulders were touching. He looked down at the image of Amelia standing between who must have been her mother and father. They both shared Amelia’s dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, and warm smile. A younger boy was in the picture too, and then a dog off to the side.

“Wow! Hot mom alert!” Allen’s calm smile didn’t waver as he turned to face Amelia. “This is a really ni—” He cut himself of when his eyes met Amelia’s, their faces separated by the width of a hand.

Allen expected fluttering eyelashes and a blush, but he got a cold stare instead.

“What?” Allen asked, backing away but not attempting to hide a smirk.

“I don’t appreciate the manipulation,” she said flatly, storing her picture again.

Allen furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about Amelia?” he asked with a laugh.

The Healer’s frown deepened into a scowl. “I’m twenty-six years old, Allen. Stop trying to play games with me; like I said, I don’t appreciate being manipulated as part of your game.” The woman looked back at Allen with icy eyes, her stare holding firm.

Allen chuckled. “Wait, you don’t think being a kid again is funny? I think is really fucking funny.”

“Well I don’t. I don’t think any of this is funny.”

Allen huffed to himself. “You know, you should learn to laugh a little sometimes. You’ll drive yourself insane if you don’t,” he said, following his own advice and chuckling again.

“No.”

Allen sighed. “Fine then, I certainly didn’t mean to bother you, miss,” he said, smirking. “It’s just the backlash from Dead Ca—”

“No, it isn’t,” Amelia said, turning to face Allen. “I know you can control yourself perfectly fine. You’re completely in control right now. You can’t hide behind the side effects of your skill while you play your games and act like a child. This isn’t a game; this world is hell, and I will do whatever is necessary to get out. I won’t let you get in the way of my only chance at seeing my family again. I know you have doubts about returning to Earth.”

“Amelia."

“You might be able to fool those idiots, but it’s not going to work on me. I can see through you because I’ve seen others like you before. You’re all the same. Your foolishness is irritating because I know it’s all fake.”

Allen waited in silence while Amelia rattled off at him. His calm smile split into a wide grin when she finished. It wasn’t a humorous smile. It was vicious, expression of bared teeth and held-back anger.

“Ah, but that only makes us the same, you and I,” he said steadily. His voice was smooth and menacing; it was completely in opposition to what it had been before. “The cutesy smiles, the fake stuttering, the concern for my wellbeing…” Allen looked directly into Amelia’s eyes. Both of them watched each other yet neither so much as blinked. “Don’t try to tell me that you haven’t been playing games too. That would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it?”

Allen didn’t give the Healer the time to answer the rhetorical question. His grin instantly dropped to a stone-cold stare. His voice came out barren and dark. “Tell me, what order are you part of?” he asked. “If it’s Ve’akrall or Terminus I’m killing her.”

Amelia looked back at him for a moment. “Pain,” was all she said.

Allen drew his lips into a thin line to hide is momentary confusion. “Oh, the Order of Pain, of course. I could have guessed that.”

“And you?” she asked, a barely perceptible hint of smugness on her face.

For a brief moment, Allen considered what his response would be. He had a whole list of possible organizations he could say he was a part of. Many would be lies, but just as many wouldn’t.

However, for whatever reason, he decided to tell the truth. “I am a Spade,” he said, grinning again.

Amelia’s face shot into an expression of shock. She physically recoiled before catching herself. “You’re a terrorist?” she asked with a look of revulsion.

“Well now, that’s not the word I would use.”

Amelia continued without giving him a chance to elaborate. “So, what’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever done to someone?” Her expression was serious. Allen would have laughed otherwise.

“Hmm, I’ll need to think for a moment…” he cupped his chin and looked off to the side, though he still noticed Amelia scowl at his theatrics. “Ah, well I’m not much of a man for torture if I’m being completely honest, but I am a bit of a specialist with illusions… The first thing that comes to mind was that time I trapped a noble in a recursive hallucination wherein a perfectly idealized version of his life played out until he died of old age. The life he lived in the illusion was so blissfully perfect, in his eyes, that he died with a smile on his face. Then he was pulled back into reality as I routinely destroyed everything and everyone he’d ever cared about. The noble was so full of despair that he just kept committing suicide until finally… he didn’t respawn.” Allen glanced back at the Healer with a smile. “And you?”

Amelia looked down. “I’ve… never actually killed anyone. I’m a Healer, I make people’s lives better by helping them.”

Allen snorted as he stood up. “The only way to make people’s lives better is by removing those who make their lives worse. I take back what I said earlier; we’re nothing alike. You’re naïve and weak if killing is really too difficult for you. It shouldn’t be. As you said, this world is hell.” Allen turned and walked back to the camp. “Keep an eye on Kenneth. You have the next watch.”